THE DANGERS OF ABSTRACTION IN BORGES ’ S “ THE IMMORTAL ” w Elena

I n Borges’s “The Immortal,” the narrator’s chronological origin and spiritual symbiosis with Homer affect the written discourse by giving it features proper to oral communication. The narrator, by virtue of his immortality, exhibits the linguistic characteristics and the viewpoint endemic to the Homeric bard. His diachronic existence allows him to incorporate into the narrative a number of features that reflect the historic transition from the oral into the literate mind. The metaphoricity and turns of speech present in “The Immortal” are largely a product of the linguistic perspectives of oral discourse. The plasticity, fluidity and transience of the language respond to philosophical rather than aesthetic exigencies. What we would call today figurative speech and myth were in ancient times essential to humanity as it saw itself in relation to the world. The capacity to conceptualize unity and permanence that emerged simultaneously with the written letter denied the transience of time and the fleetingness of orality. Borges seems to despair at the evanescence of images that dissolve in his mind after years of blindness, and to hold on to the audible quality of a language that he can no longer read, but which carries within the sound of voices.